Dior Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 18 Report
Every season, Dior‘s Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri seeks inspiration from a prominent female figure, which serves as her muse. For the Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 18 collection, she looks to writer and cultural critic Alison Bancroft (known for her work on Lacanian psychoanalysis, and sexuality) and her seminal text, Fashion and Psychoanalysis: Styling the Self. With this in mind, Chiuri’s explores Bancroft’s notions of the “inherent disorderliness of desire and subjectivity” in relation to couture, and her creations for the AW18 haute couture collection is a reflection of how she both grapples with, and negotiates, the relationship between them.
This season, we see Chiuri returning to the fundamentals, with the Bar jacket which is now given batwing sleeves. The colour palette for the season seems to be that of pastels, with powdery green, pink, orange, and brick, along with nude. Evening dresses which showcased couture pleating and layering techniques, were paired with simple bustiers.
In short, what she offered in the collection, was her very own psychoanalytical critical reading of the very idea and essence of haute couture, and in so doing, is also her way of celebrating couture as an avant-garde art form. In fact, she personally drew comparisons between haute couture and Modernist art, particularly that of a Marcel Duchamp ready made. There are certainly parallels between the two, as the intention of most Modernist art was the “shock and awe” factor: who could forget Duchamp’s Fountain which was actually an inverted version of a urinal, which served as a sort of social commentary with regards to the concept of “high art” as something that is essentially, manufactured? Like “high art” back in the day, couture too, was seen as the epitome of “high fashion” which requires the savoir-faire of a masterful atelier. With this, comes elaborate creations of grandiose proportions, which are, more often than not, conceptual pieces that provide their very own “shock and awe” factor, that’s literally “manufactured” for a client and moulded according to their own body via the made-to-order service on which haute couture itself, is premised.
What appeared to be an attempt at a restrained collection rather than that of extravagance and fanfare that is usually associated with haute couture, was Chiuri’s way of making a statement, or a social commentary, if you will, about clothing as a site of contention and resistance against the traditions of couture, just like how Modernist art was a rebellion against “high art”.
Images courtesy of Dior